This Immortal Coil
by Gundamite127
Summary: It has been nearly 50 years since Voldemort's fall. The wizard world has gone public. There is a terrorist group of wizards, Voldemort International, stirring up trouble. The Joint Ministries has tasked one armed response unit with taking them down.


Rain splattered against the mall skylight, made visible by distant street lamps glowing dim in the wet London night. Brian Colt peered through it, trying desperately trying to discern moving shapes in the inky blackness below. Eight other people also crouched in wet night, all but one of them wearing black body armor to avoid being seen. Rosie wore black robes, but didn't seem to be shivering in the rain. Brian just muttered.

"Hey, look!" Cyrus whispered as he pointed to something in the soaked night. Brian caught glimpse of a bat, which transfigured itself into a human midair, and landed lightly on the ground. The former bat was a grizzled older man of middling height and a pear like build and black hair that was iron gray at the temples. Brian, and the other eight people he led, stood easier.

"Yoab, what's our situation?" Colt whispered.

"Eight hostages. Six of them are yours. All against the back end."

He pointed the west end of the building. Sergeant Colt nodded grimly.

"Any fatalities?"

Yoab clucked his tongue.

"Security guard. Poor bloke didn't see it coming, judging by where they got him."

"Probably a show of power. Kill the man who supposed to keep you safe and they won't mess with you after that," Ruthie said. "Any injured?" Ruthie was their medic. If there was an injured man in there, it would be in her best interest to know.

"Yeah. Darren McGonagall was down in there. Tried to be a hero."

"Is he OK?" Rosie asked with a hint of trepidation. That was all Brian needed. Weasley was staying with him.

"For now, I guess. They know they get a lot for Ministry employees. They got him with a nasty curse though. _Sectumsempra_, if I had to guess, there was blood everywhere."

They fell silent for a moment. The police lights from the mass of law enforcement officers at the north end of the mall made this problematic. The _Voldemort International _bastards expected cops to flow from the north end, and had probably set up traps, cover, and surveillance, so that someone could kill the hostages while law enforcement, both normal and magical, struggled to get through. Not to mention they likely had one of those damned bottle creatures. Colt knew, from his many years with the Joint Ministries' Task Force, that this was tricky, but not impossible. They'd just have to do something unexpected.

"Kevin, if they haven't charmed the doorway, can you unlock it?"

The older wizard nodded.

"Okay, this is what's going to happen. This is exactly what's going to happen, because our lives and the lives of eight innocent Londoners depend on it. If we're unlucky, and they have a "Dragon in a can," even more lives depend on it. Is that understood?"

He was whispering, and the nods of assent came slowly and silently.

"Cyrus. You're going to take Kevin, Mina, Vasquez, Ruthie, Alex, and Duncan to the West end. Wait for our signal before you alert the terrorists to our presence." They nodded, and then went off. Rosie and Frank remained with him. Rosie stared at him for a moment.

"What now?"

"Can you open the window so we can get through?"

"Yes."

"Silently?"

"I can try," she said with a sarcastic half-smile.

"Get to it," Brian said gruffly.

Rosie took out her wand and looked at the skylight for a bit. Then she knelt down on one knee, put her wand up against the glass, and muttered something under her breath. The glass immediately began glowing red, and as she traced a hole, it appeared as it had been cut by a laser. Frank and Brian covered her, shouldering their assault rifles stoically. He wished he could talk a bit to Frank, but Frank, ever a dutiful solider, kept his attentions firmly on his surroundings. When Rosie had completed the circle, she held her wand there, and levitated the piece on the roof.

Brian and Frank were already preparing their grappling lines, tying them to small pipes. They ran the thin braided steel cable down the opening in the skylight, and slid down into the darkened mall. Brian tapped the button on the side of his mask; the mall floor suddenly brightened with his night vision. He slung his assault rifle forward, and put a magazine in to the acceptor in the stock. A click behind him confirmed Frank had done the same.

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure Rosie and Frank were following his lead, Brian inched through the shadows. The briefing said this wing wasn't used anymore. The main store, some giant building supply chain, had gone out of business in some shady stock deal gone awry, and most of the other stores which had leeched customers off of them, like restaurants and an auto repair place, had died on the vine without the draw. The terrorists apparently had picked some well dressed people from a high end clothing store, and captured two wizards who happened to be there and tried to stop them.

They stopped when they saw a light on. It was a small store front with the fading name of a formerly popular ice cream parlor painted above it in bright, colorful letters. An utterly scared-looking youth with a ridiculous haircut stood watch. His wand arm was actually trembling. Inside, Brian could see six horrified, bruised people, sitting in chairs that aligned with the big store front window. The intention was clear; if the Joint Ministries' Task Force wanted to shoot at the terrorists, they'd better be ready to accept some collateral damage. Brian wasn't about to accept that.

Whispering into the group mike in his mask, he ducked behind a garbage can. "Cyrus. Where are you?"

"We can see the terrorists."

Excellent. They had come out on the other side, just as Brian had planned. "We can see the hostages. You're at this odd ice cream shop, right?"

"Yes."

How many terrorists can you see?"

"Four. We can see another standing guard out here. Kevin, how many were there when you scouted out?"

"Nine." Kevin Yoab's voice came over the unit circuit.

"Ruthie, did you ever examine that guard?"

"Dead as a doornail, sir."

"How about that McGonagall fellow?"

"He wasn't to be found, sir."

Brian took stock of this new piece of information. There were at least four more hostiles in the building, and they had at least one wounded hostage with them, and two more. If Brian had his squad shot now, then those three hostages would probably be leaving in body bags. Well, they were wizards, so it might be the magical equivalent of one. Which didn't rectify their deadness.

"Kevin, who were the other hostages?"

"Luna Scamander, and her boy, Lorcan."

Brian heard Rosie slump behind her. This wasn't likely to end well. They needed to know there those people were now. In the meantime, those hostages he could see were in a great deal of danger. He took a deep breath. He had to trust his gut. His gut was telling him that the wizard hostages had greater value to the terrorists than the… Muggle ones, and thus they would be more hesitant to kill them.

"Mina, you're our sharpshooter. Take out the one who seems to be in charge here. If we're lucky, they'll be in too much of a panic to tell who's ever in charge."

Mina grunted. Colt could see her in his mind's eye, already taking aim as the decision was torturing him. A moment later, he heard a scream, followed by yells. He surged forward, sticking to the shadows. The scared looking kid had already turned his back to run and help his fellows; Brian nailed him in the back with a three round burst. He smashed the lock of the backdoor with his rifle's aluminum stock. Members of his squad popped up around him. Ruthie checked the neutralized terrorists, all of whom were young enough to have been Brian's kids. He looked down at the woman who Mina had sniped, identifiable by the headshot. She couldn't have been older than seventeen.

"Brian, we have a live one. He wants to talk."

He went to Ruthie, who was examining the kid he had shot. He was the only one still alive. His blue eyes trembled, and his voice wavered. But he still spoke.

"I joined VI because of Renee." He motioned to the girl with a bullet in her brain.

"Look, kid. You can tell the shrinks, or the judge, or whoever else you want. Right now, though, I have three people to save. I need to know where your friends are. I need to know now. If not, I'll just have to throw you to the cops and see how you last in a Muggle hospital. You know that those will be permanent, right? No more walking for you."

The kid's eyes watered up.

"They're over in the security room. They might be watching. They might have killed them already. They were going to make a tape of demands."

Brian nodded. Rosie tapped him with her wand; he froze completely. Not just his muscle responses. His blood stopped flowing. He seemed effectively frozen in time. Not pausing to consider how Rosie might have managed that, he turned to Alex.

"Do you guys know if our tech guys fed false video feed into the system?"

"They did one better," said Alex. "Before we got here, they hacked the system. They're watching us, and the VI guys are probably watching Bugs Bunny or something."

Brian smiled at the thought. "Kevin, where's the security room?"

"A crap shoot, sir. Takes us through the main food court. With a huge group like this, we'll be sitting ducks."

"Are there any other ways in?"

"There's an emergency exit, sir. Opening the door will set off the fire alarm."

Brian took a little time to gather the pieces. "Mina and Kevin are with me. Everybody else, take the hostages outside. When I give the signal, I want you and the Police to flood in through that emergency exit."

Brian and Mina followed Kevin as he led them around the food court. Mina was very young for this work, only about 25 or so. Damn. He'd been doing this for about that long. A little longer, actually. Damn.

His mind flew back to the facts. The facts were that there were three hostages, one grievously injured, left in this scenario, and five terrorists who had to be neutralized. He was going in blind, with only half his team. If his tech guys hadn't hacked the camera system as well as they thought, then the poor Scamanders and that McGonagal fellow were dead, the terrorists were waiting for them, and he and his team were walking into a trap. Even if the bad guys didn't know what was happening, they still outnumbered Colt's team five to three, and had hostages.

He wished suddenly he had chosen to storm the room with Frank or Cyrus. They were better suited to this fight than Mina. But Mina was their sniper, and all they had in this situation was the element of surprise. There was a nervous looking kid playing lookout outside the security room. God, Brian hated this. All these kids. Whoever founded Voldemort International should be strung up by his balls for robbing these poor kids of any semblance of a future.

"Mina," he said into his radio, "Get the kid in the leg. Make him cause a disturbance and have his friends come out here."

"Roger that," she said as he radio crackled. A minute later, the kid screamed and toppled over. Two more came out. Shit. There were two left in there. Brian sprayed his rifle into the hallway, and ran ahead, not noticing whether Kevin was covering him or not. He fired one as soon as he came in the room, hitting a man in his arm as he extended a wand. The next thing he was hit by was a desk, levitated through the air by a man in an evil looking hood. He pointed his wand at the door; it shut, and the lock clicked. Brian looked around the room. A young man no older than 17 lay on the floor with a huge gash running down his chest. A ridiculous amount of blood was on the floor. A woman with blond hair cradled her son in her arms. Brian guessed the boy to be seven, maybe eight.

He cursed to himself. Help was not on the way. The hostages, who were in his charge, were as good as dead. The masked man seemed to be savoring this… and then he fell forward, and hit the floor. Rosie levitated the desk off of him, as police broke down the door. Paramedics rushed to the downed VI kids, and swat team members and Ministry officials swarmed the mall, making sure it was clear.

"You look like you could use a leg up."

Detectives Audrey Harker and Elias Fine picked Brian up by his shoulders, and dragged him on the desk. They helped him remove his combat mask. A healer tapped each of his knees with her wand, and he was walking again.

"Sir, I just want to thank you for saving me and my son."

"Oh. Um… It's my job, Ma'am."

"Are you alright? You look like a Tesserfly got in your head for a moment."

"I… er, pardon?"

"A Tesserfly. They are invisible insects. They are sucked up when one takes too big a breath of air, and burrow in your brain almost immediately. If I were you, I'd get that checked out very soon, they have been known to eat entire brains."

"I… really… um…. Have they, now?"

"Oh yes." Her blue eyes were twinkling without irony. Brian decided to humor her absurd claims.

"I most certainly will, Ma'am. If you'll excuse me, I have to debrief my team."

"Oh. Is Rosie on your team?"

"Yes."

"She's a very nice, lovely girl. She's like her mother and her aunt. It's such a shame she hasn't been able to find a nice boy."

Brian was getting the impression that Mrs. Scamander was trying to imply something. Before he needed to come up with something to get away from this irritating but friendly woman, Detective Fine came up and asked her if he could ask her a few questions. Bidding her and her son fair well, he borrowed a radio from a police officer and ordered his team to assemble. They assembled, and formed rank. Brian called them to attention.

"I WANT TO KNOW WHO THE FUCK DECIDED TO DISENCHANT THE ANTI APPARATION ENCHANTMENT!"

His team stood, perfectly still. Rosie stepped forward.

"I did, sir."

Brian walked over to her, and looked her in the eye.

"Do you realize what you were risking?"

"They didn't know it was not there! If we had more wizards, we could have-"

"-You endangered countless lives by disenchanting the anti apparition jinx," he cut her off. "If you disobey orders like that again, I will have to expel you from my unit. Is that understood, Weasley?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. I'll see you all at 0600."

After the rest of the team had left, Elias walked up to him.

"That was…"

"Save it. What is it?"

"I'll take your advice. You go home. Get some sleep. I'll share the information in the morning."

Colt grunted, but didn't protest. Fine gave him a ride back to the station. He put his gear back in the "Armory." That's what they called it. That's essentially what he did. A sort of glorified Armed Response. The lot was nearly empty when he got out to it. He didn't want to go home. He muttered darkly, but then decided to go to the Leaky Cauldron. Better than nowhere. Or home.

The bartender at the Leaky Cauldron was a young, very scary looking man named Phil. He was, however, very nice, even if he came off as oily as a used car salesman. The place was full of interesting people, both wizard and Muggle.

"Sir, I heard about what happened today at that store."

"It's a mall, Phil. Lots of stores. Almost as if V…" He remembered that wizards still were squeamish about the name. "Terrorists captured… what do you call it?"

"Diagon Ally, sir."

"Right," he took a swig of his ale. Ale had been coming back. So had many medieval trappings. The wizard way of life had created several fads. He turned around and watched the ebb and flow of patrons, meanwhile nursing his alcohol. Phil left to attend to a delegation of Wizarding government officials, and he exchanged stories with the older woman who had sat down next to him. He turned and looked at her. He wanted a reason to look away from the officials. One of them was Rosie's uncle. His glasses were distinctive anywhere.

The woman next to him turned out to be pleasant enough. Her name was Hannah, and she actually owned the damn place. Well, her and her husband. Around 11 o'clock, a tall man with a round face and black hair came in, shook Rosie's uncle's hand, and walked over to Hannah. Hannah took it, explaining that she had to go, and together they went.

Colt figured it was her husband. If not, well then, fuck it. It wasn't any of his damn business. He continued drinking. Another woman sat next to him. Her name was Altara Vellino, and she worked for an odd company. Brian didn't exactly understand what she did, but it sounded to him like magical trouble shooting. He was about to launch into the story of his 34 hour bombing run over Sierra Leone, which was, by his approximation, quite a story, when someone tapped on his shoulder. Altara went very blue.

A man in very crisp robes stood before him. His iron gray hair was long, messy and untidy. His green eyes were shielded by round, gleaming glasses. Neither his long bangs nor his heavily lined face could completely hide the iconic scar on his forehead.

"Mr. Potter," Altara gasped.

"Thank you, Altara. Mr. Colt, I wish to shake your hand."

He extended it. Brian took it. Potter had firm grip and a solid shake. They nodded, and Potter went to the back of the shop.

"You… met Harry Potter?"

Brian shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. His niece is in my unit."

"You're unit?"

"Joint Ministries Task Force."

"Are you an inspector?"

"No, Miss. Armed Response."

"You're a paladin, then?"

That damn colloquialism stuck. He hated it, even if he thought it did sound kind of cool.

"I suppose."

"Oh. Have you killed anyone?"

"I've been telling you my war stories, haven't I, miss? People died when those bombs fell on them."

"Yeah… But I mean…"

"I know what you mean. Yes. In fact, unless healers are better than I thought at their jobs, I killed 6 people today." He took a long swig of ale, during which they were both silent. "Which is why I'm here."

"Oh." She looked timidly at him. "I'm sorry."

He sighed. "It's fine, I suppose."

"Look, if you want to go upstairs, and get a room, we can discuss it in a more private setting."

"Sure."


End file.
